Dysfunction for the Holidays? Here’s How to Remind Yourself That Things Could Be Way Worse

It was Thanksgiving 2002, but I remember it like it was yesterday: lying on an air mattress, hiding from my family, utterly absorbed in Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections. The travails of the Lambert clan were so much more painful (and funny) than my own, that when I went down to join my relatives for turkey and stuffing I felt armored and consoled. The lesson stuck: There is nothing like a story of another’s family problems to ease you through the holidays. It’s a kind of exposure therapy. Your own stresses and patterns get knocked down to size. At least we’re not all raging alcoholics! Or self-absorbed narcissists! Or mentally ill! I keep a stack of such books and films—and the stray indie record—close at hand this time of year. Give any of the below a try if, like me, you need a dose of dysfunction for the holidays.

The holy text of family dysfunction. The excruciating centripetal journey of the three Lambert siblings to their parents’ Midwestern home for one last Christmas together offers so many pleasures, not least of which is a mental game: Am I as miserable as Chip? Or Denise? Or Gary? It’s Franzen’s best book, and hardly underread, but if by some miracle you haven’t gotten around to it—or given in to it—do yourself the favor.

Once upon a time, The Squid and the Whale would have made my list. But The Meyerowitz Stories has become my runaway favorite Noah Baumbach movie. It’s warmer and funnier than his other films, and just as composed and uncompromising about the wounding patterns of family. See it for Adam Sandler’s grounded turn as a stuck dad. Or Emma Thompson’s cameo as a hilariously boozy stepmother. See it for the scenes in which Dustin Hoffman’s tormenting paterfamilias runs away from his children. Such is a truth of family life: Sometimes we must flee.

If some 500-plus pages of The Corrections is too heavy a lift, try Alison Bechdel’s 2006 graphic memoir, which you can devour in a sitting. I did that just the other weekend and will keep it around for Thanksgivings future. It combines elegantly beautiful images with a literary seriousness about trauma and being queer and confronting your parents’ sins. It’s mesmerizing the way Bechdel vacillates between anger and love for her father—a fascinatingly flawed character, in a book full of them—all the way to the shattering last page.

I still remember being floored by Thomas Vinterberg’s film when I saw it back in 1998 at a small art-house theater. It’s a horror movie without violence, a story of a terrible family secret coming to light, with everyone in black tie. It’s also perfectly modulated, shot with natural light and no music—one of the first in the short-lived Dogme 95 movement—and a cathartic vision of bravery. Unmissable.

If you need something to listen to on the Thanksgiving dog walk, dial up the Mountain Goats’s 2005 indie masterpiece, and listen to John Darnielle exorcise some serious family demons. There are songs about his stepfather’s abuse, his frighteningly disordered childhood home, his teenage drinking and pill taking. He writes better than anyone about the refuge of video games, of girlfriends, of headphones and dance music. It’s gorgeous and buoyantly melodic and resilient for all of its angst. Best track: “This Year,” obviously.

With two haunting movies under his belt, Krisha and It Comes at Night, Trey Edward Shults is well on his way to becoming America’s most exciting young filmmaker. The one to watch at Thanksgiving is his debut, filmed on a shoestring budget, which features his real-life aunt Krisha in the title role. She is a mentally ill woman trying, and failing, to keep it together for a family Thanksgiving. The scene in which the turkey hits the floor (spoiler!) is just . . . epic.

TV is lousy with family dysfunction. Take your pick: Arrested Development, any of the Real Housewives,The Sopranos. For me, Six Feet Under is the hard stuff: a 63-episode, five-season epic about the ties that bind, about mortality, love, and death most of all—about everything really. Peter Krause, Michael C. Hall, Rachel Griffiths, Richard Jenkins, Frances Conroy . . . all in their prime. This is like The Corrections: If for some reason you’ve never plunged in, now’s the time.